The real eye-catcher, though, was the presence of plumbonacrite—a rare compound stable found only in an alkaline environment. “Leonardo probably endeavored to prepare a thick paint suitable for ...

If you are in need of a lesson on just how much things have changed in the last 60 years, an anecdote from my childhood might suffice. My grandfather was a junk man, augmenting the income from his ...

Leonardo da Vinci is renowned to this day for innovations in fields across the arts and sciences. Now, new analyses show that his taste for experimentation extended even to the base layers underneath ...

The latest short science news items from C&EN. “You understand easily when you analyze his pigments and his compositions that he was truly an experimenter,” says Gilles Wallez, an inorganic chemist at ...

This tiny fleck of paint, taken from the “Mona Lisa” is revealing insights into previously unknown steps of the artists’ process. Leonardo da Vinci is renowned to this day for innovations in fields ...

Leonardo da Vinci is renowned to this day for innovations in fields across the arts and sciences. Now, new analyses published in the Journal of the American Chemical Society show that his taste for ...